Jindal outlines tentative plan for Gustav evacuation

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal laid out the state's emergency preparedness plan this evening for the potential arrival of Hurricane Gustav, which he said could make landfall in Louisiana sometime early Tuesday.

The state's catastrophic action team has been activated and the governor plans to hold a meeting Wednesday of his unified command group, who are key officials with state agencies that would be dealing with the emergency.

If the storm continues to threaten the state, Jindal would declare a state emergency and request a federally declared emergency on Thursday. Those declarations trigger regulatory and financing programs to help the government deal with a disaster.

The governor emphasized that all the plans are tentative based on the direction of the storm and that the steps for evacuation may not be necessary.

If the storm continues to head toward Louisiana, the governor on Thursday would exercise state contracts for up to 700 buses to assist with evacuations.

Assisted evacuations could begin as early as Friday and evacuations from hospitals and medical care facilities would begin Saturday. Evacuations by rail also could begin Saturday.

Contra-flow, in which all lanes of major highways would direct traffic away from the storm impact area, could begin Saturday or very early Sunday, Jindal said.

"These are the timetables as we see them now," Jindal said. "We all hope this will be a false alarm."

The state has identified locations for 10,000 critical care beds for evacuees and 68,000 regular beds for evacuation.

The Louisiana National Guard has been put on alert and could be called up, Jindal said. The number of Guardsmen and the place of deployment will be determined as the direction of the storm becomes clearer, Jindal said.

"Be ready, now's the time to review your plans," Jindal said. "This is a serious storm."

State officials are about to enter a tiered system of emergency alert, Jindal said. The tiers include levels 1, 2 and 3, with level 1 being the most serious. The higher the alert, the more staff goes to work and the more preparations are made for evacuations. The state is expected to enter a Level 3 on Wednesday followed by Level 2 on Thursday, depending on the storm's activity.